Hanks, S. (2017). Why we have to pay for the internet. Forbes.com. https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/10/17/why-we-have-to-pay-for-the-internet/?sh=76386103591
This is a short article and I am likely to replace it as it doesn’t really take the reader all the way to the present but gives a nice historical overview of how the internet was paid for in the past and establishes a framework for the idea that the internet is actually funded by users and then details where that user funding has come from over time..
no author. (2019). How the Biggest Internet Companies Make Money. Internet Health Report. https://internethealthreport.org/2019/how-the-biggest-internet-companies-make-money/
Explores revenue sources for the larger global technology companies. The initial section, The Attention Merchants: Facebook, Google and Baidu, is the one that is most germane to my exploration. IN the cases of the three companies mentioned in this section, it is clear that most internet-based tech companies (unlike Microsoft and Apple that sell actual products) derive most of their money from targeting ads to the viewer.
Mindsea Team. (n.d.). How Do Free Apps Make Money? mindsea.com. https://mindsea.com/how-free-apps-make-money/
An excellent overview of the different paths that free apps (as opposed to the big players) use to generate income. The more upfront approaches like the freemium model, wherein games let you play for free but your experience would clearly be better if you paid or the apps that charge a straightforward fee for a great product are less interesting than the sneakier ways like using multipoint data (data pooled from different apps) to assemble advertising for you. Regardless, a great overview of the approaches these smaller companies are using and possible thoughts on future revenue sources.
Cleary, G. (2018). Mobile Privacy: What Do Your Apps Know About You? Symantec Threat Intelligence Blog. https://symantec-enterprise-blogs.security.com/blogs/threat-intelligence/mobile-privacy-apps
This resource is similar in focus to the one above but hones in on the amount of data your apps are keeping on you and the section where they explore the amount of access you commit to when you download the free apps, Zodiac Signs 101 – 12 Zodiac Signs & Astrology and rightest Flashlight LED – Super Bright Torch, is shocking.
Turow, J. (2017). The Aisles Have Eyes: How Retailers Track Your Shopping, Strip Your Privacy and Define Your Power. Yale University Press.
This is a follow up to his other work that appears in our course’s “Course Resource” section and is a startlingly brilliant exploration of how our personal devices and on-line behaviour are generating monstrous amounts of data and how that data is being used to sell us products.
White, S. (2018). Digital Addiction: How Technology Keeps Us Hooked. theconversation.com https://theconversation.com/digital-addiction-how-technology-keeps-us-hooked-97499
A brief but informative piece that helps to tie all of these other pieces together by examining some of the techniques used to keep us on our devices and apps so that the companies who own the apps can better collect data on us and monetize our attention. Compulsive checking, one of the behavioural aspect of their approach is certainly familiar to me.